This dissertation examines literary forms of dialectics in the works of Alexander Kluge and Heiner Müller. The introduction delineates the scope of my analysis by theorizing relevant links between dialectics and literary form. Chapter 1 reconstructs the status of experience in the German dialectical tradition to establish theoretical standards for critically assessing human experience in society as well as to designate the space of Kluge and Müller's literary interventions in their respective West, East and reunified Germanys. I thus frame Kluge and Müller's literary dialectics as sensitive and suggestive responses to a perceived crisis of experience in modern society as diagnosed by Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno and others.

Subsequent chapters analyze literary forms of dialectics such as chiasmus, catachresis and Eigensinn (the stubborn self-will to meaning) that Kluge and Müller's texts lend to experiential conflicts. In chapter 3, I interpret stories from Alexander Kluge's Die Lücke, die der Teufel läßt to ascertain literature's diabolical dialectics. Kluge's preoccupation with experiential contingency can be shown to disrupt the certainty of philosophy's demystifying critiques of social reality. The resulting tension between critical theory and life-praxis necessitates a reappraisal of the relationship between Kluge's own theoretical and literary praxis. Chapter 4 addresses his activity as theoretician and storyteller by comparing aspects of the philosophical tome Geschichte und Eigensinn to Chronik der Gefü¨hle's obstinate stories. Challenges confronting theory in practice lead to my consideration of Heiner Müller's critical contribution to the socialist project in the GDR in chapter 5. By carefully attending to the spaces and times of human experience, Müller's early dramas Der Lohndrücker and Die Umsiedlerin suggest alternatives to the party's course. The chiasmus constitutes the focus of the final chapter, in which I demonstrate how Müller's use of this literary-dialectical structure in Der Auftrag and Philoktet participates in social critique. By comparatively examining Kluge and Müller's shared interest in dialectics, I show how their literature outlines untimely strategies for rethinking and rehabilitating meaningful human experience in society.